The Angels
by MeghanJinx
Summary: A depressed Cho flips through her scrapbook... and what she finds brings back all the tearful memories of Cedric. Songfic to 'Angel' by Sarah McLachlan. 0 :) Be an angel and read.


The Angels

By: Meghan~Jinx

Authors note: This may, or may not have been done before. I apologize to any authors that may have done this. And yes, this took about thirty minutes. So I hope it's not bad. :) I just had to post something. I was switching classes today, and I thought of this. And yes, expect that Ginny story any day now. 

__

Spend all your time waiting  
for that second chance  
for a break that would make it okay  
there's always one reason  
to feel not good enough  
and it's hard at the end of the day  
I need some distraction  
oh beautiful release  
memory seeps from my veins  
let me be empty  
and weightless and maybe  
I'll find some peace tonight  


I stared up ceiling from my four poster bed. I think it was another one of those 'times.' By 'times', I mean the times I feel like crying for no reason. The times when I feel as though _why me_? And feel as though the world has shunned my feelings… don't they think _I_ would cry, of all people? Of course. They just didn't understand. 

It was more than a 'silly teen romance.' 

I loved him.

Real love. They scoff. Roll your eyes. They think _she's too young to know real love_. Don't they think I know my own emotions?

Love is the most powerful force on earth. It even saved lived. And thank God in Heaven for love, because that's what keeps the world turning. 

Now, it's my turn to sneer and roll my eyes. Love? Powerful? 

Of course.

But do they mention overpowering? Do they mention what happens when you heart has broken? Of course. Love is so wonderful… so great… if makes the world go 'round… 

But it's also so awful. They say, "better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all." Tell that to me. Tell that to my tears. Tell that to the force inside me that controls me. It the force of having loved and then _lost. _Tell that to me.

I rolled over on my side, biting my lip, and shaking my head.

__

Was that my problem? Cedric? Surely not, after all this time! I thought. But time… time is just digits in a clock. Time is what's in _you._

And after a year, it could probably never go away. No, not every second I spend on self-pity, and guilt, and my own personal depressions, but always (_always_) when I feel…on top of the world… it's always down inside of me. And after the hype is gone, what's left? I mean what does it all matter? When I become an adult, in the adult world, what will they care that I had two of the Champions ask me to the Yule Ball? After this, no one will care.

So, I ask you this: why work so hard, when it's going to be appreciated later? I don't know… work on what you know.

I squeezed my eyes closed, and allowed my hand to drift over a leather book at my side. My scrapbook.

I turned back over on my forearm, and sticking a tiny key in the side, it opened. Inside, were all sorts of things… pictures, letters, and my diary.

I don't read my diary anymore. It has too much in it. 

But, fighting a little voice in the back of my head, which was screaming with intense force, "No Cho!" and the feeling in my heart that told me in would only make the wound grow deeper.

I began to flip through the pages.

Frozen in one of those solitary moments was my father and I. We were horseback riding. Of all things. Horses scared me. But when I was four, he took me riding, and I fell in a deep love with it. Even when I got my own mare. I'd spend hours, just riding, just thinking.

I love to think, on contrary belief to most. Why am I a Ravenclaw then, if I'm such an airhead? I do think… I heard some girls once… the things they said…

"Yeah," said the taller one, flipping her hair. "That Cho Chang. Acting all sad all the time. I mean the guy's planted. She's such a ditz… I didn't think she thought… how did she become a Ravenclaw anyway?"

"Right, you really should hear some of things those Slytherins call her… I'll bet you, they're not very nice names to call a person."

"Yeah, but Miss High and Mighty needs to be brought to earth right? So she's so athletic and popular!" retorted her friend.

"Oh, don't pick on her Samantha," said a third, soft-spoken girl. "Poor Cho. She's been through a lot. She'll probably never get over it."

Then I remember running from the awful, awful girls, crying.

How dare they say such things to me? How dare they?

Then I climbed to my dorm, and cried. Just simply that. And I felt as though I felt now. Like the world didn't love me at all. 

The world forgot Cho Chang.

And in time, would forget Cedric Diggory.

I turned a page, and found stuck away, a note. The parchment was so folded and refolded, the ink had begun to smear.

__

in the arms of an angel  
fly away from here  
from this dark cold hotel room  
and the endlessness that you fear  
you are pulled from the wreckage  
of your silent reverie  
you're in the arms of the angel  
may you find some comfort there  


Dear Cho,

Meet me outside…yeah, at our secret place. That's all I can say… it's Transfiguration now, and I think Professor McGonagall knows I'm not doing the assignment.

Love,

Cedric

I stared at the page, stunned. I forgot that note ever existed.

I quickly stuffed it back into the folds of the paper that tucked it away and so aptly hidden.

A small tear ran down my solemn face.

I remember that night. He seemed different. He seemed worried. He seemed troubled. 

And I didn't like the way his eyes shined with some sort of fervent seriousness, as though he words were flowing and trying to tell me something, and they didn't register in my mind, exactly.

Like, he _knew_ something, and wanted to tell me, but couldn't.

Like he knew his own fate.

And that night had haunted my very dreams ever since he died.

I mean… what sort of dream was it? 

I curse myself and wonder, _why didn't I let him finish_?

But, it's too late for that now.

He stopped twisting the ring on his finger and looked up at me, with that look.

"Cho?" he had asked. I looked up, pursing my lips.

"What is it, Cedric… is something wrong?" I asked, concerned wrinkles forming on my forehead.

"You know why they haven't had a Tournament in so long… right?"

"Well, it sort of morbid, but the death toll of the Champions was so high—"

He cut me off and nodded shortly. "Cho…you do know how dangerous this is don't you?"

"Of course I do. Cedric, what are you getting at?" I inquired, cocking one of my small, delicate eyebrows.

"What would you if I… if I… what would you do if I died?" he finished, all at once, barely putting a pause between words.

The question swept over me like a tidal wave, shocking me and leaving me frozen. My heart began to put faster.

"Why do ask?"

"I just… have this feeling. Call it intuition or maybe even precognition… but I just have this feeling that something is going to happen to one of us. And I think…" He bit his lip. "I think it's going to be me."

"Why? Don't you think you're as good as those other Champions?!"

"No… it was this dream. Well that doesn't matter—"

"Are you think of dropping out or something?" 

"No. No. Never."

"Cause I know you're not a quitter, Cedric."

"And I'd never stop—for you."

Then he slipped his hand into mine, a comfortable silence settled.

__

so tired of the straight line  
and everywhere you turn  
there's vultures and thieves at your back  
and the storm keeps on twisting  
you keep on building the lie  
that you make up for all that you lack  
it don't make no difference  
escaping one last time  
it's easier to believe in this sweet madness oh  
this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees  


And just like that. I only wish I hadn't been so… so stubborn and obstinate. He could've saved himself. My memory forever repeats that night, around and around, until it doesn't make sense anymore. 

I didn't want to think it was my fault.

But after all, the lonely heart has to blame somebody. 

Blame the world. 

Blame everybody.

Blame him.

But you end up blaming yourself.

I gazed through hollow eyes at the rest of things… things so meaningless… things I'd give up for Cedric again. 

Then my stare came to rest on the last picture. It was a wonderful, pleasant, just-happy-to-be-alive photo. It was Cedric and I.

We were smiling. Cedric had his arm around my thin waist. My arm was perched atop Cedrics's shoulder. Nothing fancy, just our robes. Must've been at the end of the fourth year.

But somehow, in all its vague simplicity, it struck something in me. 

My fingers slipped down the slick materiel, and I stared at it almost hungrily, wanting in. 

Wanting that moment back. Wanting to take back that time. 

My fingers slipped over the cover as I closed it slowly, and clasped it to my chest, as though it were gold. 

Gold in my eyes.

Then my tears began to fall, and uttered a low sob, that soon turned as powerful as a thousand sobs, causing my slender shoulders to convulse uncontrollably and my hands shake.

I heard my dorm mates coming up from dinner. And as the last tears fell, I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep, my eyes fluttering and I was hiccuping a little.

And I dreamed.

Oh, how I dreamed.

__

in the arms of an angel  
fly away from here  
from this dark cold hotel room  
and the endlessness that you fear  
you are pulled from the wreckage  
of your silent reverie  
you're in the arms of the angel  
may you find some comfort there  
you're in the arms of the angel  
may you find some comfort here  


He was there. I was there. But I didn't know where _there_ was. But all I knew was, was Cedric was standing next to me. And then he slid his hands over mine, and we owned the dance floor. And we danced faster, the music pounding in our ears, and all we knew was each other.

And that moment.

And that second.

And the way we knew everything was right. 

Yet, in that minute of sheer ecstasy, and wonder, I felt nothing hollow. Nothing empty.

I knew my Cedric was there, and that's _all _that mattered. 

But, soon it would all be over. 

I'd lift my head away from my tear-soaked pillow, and look out the window, to the night, through the lonely glass longing to be back in my dream, my fantasy more than that.

But that's all it was. 

A fantasy.

And I'd fall back into a doze, and smile the smile I only smiled in my slumber.

And dream of dancing.

And of laughter.

And of the feeling when I was with my angel that would never return.

  
  
  



End file.
